1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to an electrical connection device for electrically connecting peripheral devices to a computer, and in particular to a stacked connection device comprising a plurality of connectors vertically fixed to each other whereby a plurality of peripheral devices may be connected to the computer by means of a single connection device that occupies a limited space on the computer main board.
2. The Prior Art
Electrical connectors are widely used to connect peripheral devices, such as a mouse, a keyboard and a printer, to a computer. The electrical connectors usually comprise a nonconductive housing accommodating conductive terminal pins and a metal shield encasing the nonconductive housing. Such electrical connectors are disclosed in Taiwan patent application No. 83208436 and U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,842,555, 4,913,664, 5,035,651 and 5,178,562.
The above-mentioned electrical connectors can only connect a single peripheral device. To connect a number of peripheral devices to the computer, the same number of connectors are required. Such connectors are usually mounted to a main board of a computer and occupy a significant surface area on the main board. Furthermore, such connectors must be individually mounted to the main board thereby increasing the time and labor required for assembly.
It is thus desirable to have an electrical connection device having a plurality of connectors vertically stacked on each other to address the problems discussed above.